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Russia Open Fire on ISIS

The Russian defence ministry has announced that the frigate Admiral Essen (Grigorovich class) and the submarine Krasnodar (Kilo class) have fired four cruise-missiles at positions in central Syria controlled by ISIS, near the city of Palmyra.

Russia has been carrying out air and missile strikes in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2015.

Government forces recaptured Palmyra and its Unesco World Heritage-listed ruins with Russian help in March 2016, but were driven out by IS eight months later. Much of the city has been destroyed.

The ‘Kalibr’ cruise missiles which are as long as a stretched limo and weigh the same as an elephant were fired at “shelters” east of Palmyra, where a group of heavily armed militants previously deployed in Raqqa were based.

“All the targets were hit,” a spokesman from the Russian defence ministry said.

The US, Turkish and Israeli militaries “were informed in a timely manner of the missile launches through existing communication channels” he added.